


The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions

by imaginarycircus



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: Angst, F/M, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-07
Updated: 2013-02-07
Packaged: 2017-11-28 12:54:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/674623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginarycircus/pseuds/imaginarycircus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Restaging of Darcy watching Lizzie’s videos with Fitz and a bottle of whiskey. Because friends don’t let friends watch 58 videos in which they are destroyed by the woman they love alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions

Fitz was cornered. Ricky Collins, in his yellow mustard bottle costume, was recounting how Catherine DeBourgh had personally arranged the coffee mugs in the break room to take up the least amount of space and yet also be symmetrically pleasing to the eye.

He wondered how Darcy was getting along. They probably should have practiced, but maybe it was better that Darcy would have to express himself spontaneously.

Fitz clutched a rapidly warming beer in one hand and his phone in the other, willing it to do something—predict a typhoon, alert him that his car had be stolen, anything that would give him an excuse to run for it. He’d already tried walking away, but Ricky had simply followed him and never stopped talking.

Fitz almost dropped his phone when it did vibrate, such was his stupor.

Text from W Darcy: Heading back to Catherine’s. Can you find your own way back?

Text to W Darcy: HIGH FIVE! If you want the guest house to yourselves…

Text from W Darcy: Did you know about the videos?

Text to W Darcy: Darcy, man, don’t do it.

Text from W Darcy: I have to know.

Text to W Darcy: I’ll be there in half an hour. Do NOT start without me. This is not something you should do alone.

**

Darcy was slumped, slouching even, on the hard, white leather sofa in Catherine’s guest house. Fitz didn’t know that Darcy was physically capable of slouching. He never had before, not even when drunk. To be fair, Darcy was the politest drunk in the history of alcohol.

Fitz unsheathed a bottle from its brown paper bag and plunked down along with two glasses and some ice. “I got that stuff you like that tastes like an ashtray.”

Darcy was staring at his laptop, at Lizzie’s face in still at the start of her first video. This was going to be a hoot and a half. Fitz poured them each a few fingers of whiskey and sat down, shifting to find a comfortable spot and not finding one. He was pretty sure that Catherine’s interior decorator was sadist with a taste for Mid-Century Modern furniture.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Fitz clinked his glass against Darcy’s with no cooperation from Darcy.

“You don’t have to do this.” Darcy gulped half his whiskey.

“Yeah. I do. And let me just say now that I am really and truly sorry.”

Darcy looked at him quizzically.

“You’ll understand later. Unfortunately. Go ahead. Hit play.” Fitz was more interested in watching Darcy than the videos so he sat back and prepared for the worst. 

The first few videos were classic Lizzie and Darcy wasn’t even blinking. Darcy wasn’t going to call him on the carpet for not warning him about the videos, but Fitz wished he would.

“Is their mom that bad?” Fitz asked.

“I’d say Lizzie has toned her down, if anything.” Darcy’s glass was almost empty, but they had fifty-six more videos to go. Pacing was going to be key. Fitz nudged the whiskey bottle down the coffee table and out of Darcy’s reach, but Darcy marked the movement.

End of episode five:

Jane: Darcy was there too. Why don’t we talk about him.

Lizzie: And we’re done.

Fitz leaned over and hit the space bar to pause before the next one could start. “Are you sure you want to keep going? I can sum this up for you and spare you—”

“No. I need to see… she hates me. She made that perfectly clear, but I need to know why.” Darcy drew the bottle back towards him and filled his glass to the top. He took a healthy swig before hitting the space bar again.

After “Snobby Mr. Douchey” it spiraled lower and lower. Fitz let out a groan when Darcy tried to ask Lizzie to dance. Darcy glared.

“I’m sorry, but it’s like the eleventh grade winter formal all over again.” Fitz sipped his whiskey. It really did taste like an ashtray.

“Jane does a great you. She’s more you than you are.” Was he drunk? That sentence made no sense. Absolutely no reaction from Darcy.

The Jane and Bing videos were painful. Darcy was only watching out of one partially closed eye and he had to pour another glass full of whiskey. The bottle was emptying fast.

Neither of them said anything about Caroline and Fitz didn’t say what he was thinking. “People in love do some crazy shit.”

As soon as Wickham came on screen Fitz pried the glass from Darcy’s death grip, partly because he was afraid of it shattering and partly because he was afraid Darcy might throw it.

The videos continued to march across the screen in an endless grim procession, Lizzie’s chipper voice effectively rubbing salt in Darcy’s wounds.

The whiskey bottle was three-quarters empty and Fitz was still nursing his first glass. Darcy had sunk lower on the sofa, his neck at a right angle to his torso. Lizzie was at Collins and Collins and Fitz braced himself. If Darcy wanted to sock him one—well, Fitz felt like he owed Darcy one good, clean shot.

The last episode. Fifty-eight. Fitz studied Darcy’s blank, glazed expression, but Darcy didn’t even twitch as Fitz defended him by throwing him under the bus. Several buses. The last one backed up and ran Darcy over again for good measure.

The outro theme song played and Darcy said nothing. He didn’t move. Fitz didn’t think you could pass out with your eyes open, but he waved his hand in front of Darcy’s face anyway. 

“I understand now.” Darcy closed his laptop and set it down on the coffee table. He stood, cradled the bottle under his arm and lurched off to his room.

Fitz sat in the dark living room for a long time waiting for clarity. It didn’t come. He peeled himself off the sofa and filled a carafe with water, which he carried into Darcy’s room. The guy was lying on his stomach diagonally across the bed. The bottle was empty, lying on its side on the floor. For Darcy—this was chaos. Fitz felt so much worse than that time he’d accidentally let his little brother’s beloved pet iguana, Fluffy, escape. He’d looked for that dude for a week and let his brother have his dessert for a month. It didn’t make up for the despair on his brother’s face every time he looked at the empty glass case. Worse than that time he’d backed up into his father’s precious rebuilt Gull Wing Mercedes. Even worse than that time he’d told his grandmother that he hated her.

Fitz set the carafe on the nightstand and placed the empty whiskey bottle in the trash. He removed Darcy’s shoes and tie, which wasn’t that hard because he was completely floppy. Getting him into bed the proper way took some elbow grease. Fitz tossed the eight zillion decorative silk pillows on the floor and wrestled Darcy under the world’s ugliest comforter. (Probably also the costliest.)

“Darce?”Fitz sat on the edge of the bed. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but I think you ought to tell her about Wickham. Explain what really happened. She should know.”

Darcy was going to be miserable when he woke up and Fitz knew that Darcy’s contacts would be glued to his eyeballs, but as much as he loved the guy he was not going to fish contacts lenses out of his unconscious eyes. Well, he would if they were covered in poison or something.

**

Darcy didn’t leave his room the next day until late afternoon. He looked like crap on a cracker. Fitz harassed him until he ate some dry toast and drank a glass of icy ginger ale, which seemed to revive Darcy very slightly. Then he stumbled back to bed.

**

Fitz was sitting at the dining room table the following morning, pouring over P&L statements and sales projections when Darcy emerged. He was tidy looking, but pale—holding an envelope. Fitz had been on the receiving end of Darcy’s letters before. They were like some crazy kind of time travel. Darcy used a fountain pen and wax seals. Fitz found it endearing, but he had a feeling Lizzie would take as some sort of slur against her use of modern technology.

“Wait.” Fitz came around the table and pushed Darcy back into his room. He rifled through Darcy’s closet and pulled out a navy blue bow tie.

“No.”

Fitz brandished it at Darcy, who sighed and stripped off the tie he was wearing. As he tied the bow tie he said, “I’m not wearing the hat.”

“That would be overkill.” Fitz didn’t offer to go with Darcy because he knew Darcy would refuse and some things you have to see through on your own. Still, he could help a parting shot. “Remember, you’re not a robot.”

There in the confines of the walk-in closet Fitz thought Darcy might actually punch him. The blow never came. Darcy nodded curtly, turned on his heel and left. Fitz wished that Darcy had popped him one. It would have hurt less.


End file.
